Read Online First Degree by David Rosenfelt - Free Book Online Page B

looks up, surprised. “You’re looking for information?”
    “I agreed to come here, didn’t I?” I ask. “What did you think I was going to do, propose marriage?”
    “Information about what?”
    “Alex Dorsey.”
    He laughs. “I’m not on the case, asshole. You could have found that out at Burger King.”
    “I’m not talking about the Garcia case. I’m talking about Alex Dorsey. I’m talking about whatever he was doing, and why he wasn’t busted for it back when Laurie turned him in. And why he was going to be busted now.”
    “I don’t know,” he says.
    “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re a hot shit lieutenant, plus you’re a nosy son of a bitch. You know everything that goes on down there.”
    He shakes his head. “Not this. This is buried deep.” Then he adds, “Besides, ‘down there’ may not be where you think it is, or want it to be.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    He puts down one of his forks, I think the third-smallest one, and stares at me. It is the kind of stare that has made felons confess for the last twenty years. “I’m going to tell you something, but if anyone ever learns that it came from me, I’m going to beat you to death with your wallet.”
    “Trust me, if there’s one thing I’ve learned this week, it’s that I can keep a secret.”
    Pete nods. The truth is, he knows this without my having to say it. “The Bureau is involved.”
    This surprises me. “The FBI?”
    “No, the bureau in my bedroom, bozo.”
    I ignore the insult; this is too significant a development. “What about Dorsey makes this federal?”
    “I have no idea,” he claims, and I’m sure he doesn’t. “All I know is that there was talk that the feds got the department to lay off. I assume they were covering the same turf with an investigation of their own.”
    “Then why would that have changed? Why would Dorsey have had to run?”
    Pete doesn’t know the answer to that, so I ask him if he’s ever heard of Geoffrey Stynes. He hasn’t, but agrees to check him out. I haven’t heard back from Vince yet, so it makes sense to put Pete on the case as well.
    I’m ready to leave, but Pete makes me wait while he tries both the crème brûlée and the cherries jubilee. Both meet with his approval, though he considers the crème brûlée “a tad lumpy.” I tell him that if he ever picks a restaurant like this again, I’m going to introduce him to a different kind of “lumpy.”
    I start planning some strategy on the way home. What I need to do is try the case as if I wasn’t aware of Garcia’s innocence, and that means learning everything I can about the victim, Dorsey. If Pete is right about the FBI’s involvement, and he is rarely wrong about such things, then there’s a great deal to learn, and most likely great benefit in learning it.
    When I get home, I am treated to as nice a sight as I can remember in a very long time. Laurie is sitting on the porch with Tara, with Laurie in the role of petter and Tara in the role of pettee. I park and walk toward them, just as they come off the porch and walk toward me.
    Laurie hugs me as Tara sits by, waiting her turn. The hug lasts a while, which is good. I’m in no rush. Finally, she breaks it off and looks in my eyes.
    “I know you wouldn’t take this case to hurt me,” she says.
    “I wouldn’t.”
    “I know you have a good reason for taking it,” she says.
    “I do.”
    “I know you can’t tell me what that reason is,” she says.
    “I can’t.”
    “I know that you love me,” she says.
    “I do.”
    “I know you’re thinking you want me to stay with you tonight, even though it’s not Monday, Wednesday, or Friday,” she says.
    “I am.”
    “I know that if you give another two-word answer, I’m going home, and you will have missed out on a warm, loving, wildly exciting sexual experience,” she says.
    “I understand that completely and I guarantee you I have absolutely no intention of ever giving a two-word